The present invention relates generally to security, and more particularly to providing self-contained device security (which may be used, for example, to secure information stored as an electronic identification or information stored in a memory device that provides memory for access by various types of computing systems).
In one existing approach, security for memory devices may be provided using software encryption that requires operating-system-specific software to be contained on the memory device—or, alternatively, on a host device (such as a portable computer) to which the memory device may be coupled. In addition, an external user interface for keyboard interaction with an authentication application is typically required in this approach, whereby a user supplies a security code for unlocking the memory device. As a disadvantage of this approach, decryption software that will decrypt a stored copy of the user's security code may be required for each operating system platform that might be running on the memory device or host, which may be prohibitively expensive for a development team to provide. In addition, malicious host sniffer software or a keystroke logger may be able to capture a security code entered by a user for transmission to the authentication application, which may permanently compromise the memory device's security.
In another existing approach, security for memory devices may be provided using biometric sensors such as thumbprint readers, retinal scanners, and so forth. In this approach, the memory device is required to learn each user's unique biometric feature (such as the user's thumbprint or retinal scan) as a reference sample and must be able identify a match to that sample upon a subsequent presentment by the same user, regardless of the then-current environmental conditions (such as dirt or other substances on the reader window and/or on the users' hand, eye, etc.). Biometric sensors may, in some cases, be inconvenient or non-intuitive to use. In addition, if the biometric sensor incurs damage, it may cease to operate; or, the biometric data may fail to match the previously-captured reference sample if the environmental conditions are non-optimal or if the user is not properly aligned with the biometric sensor (e.g., does not place his or her eye in the correct position relative to a retinal scanner).